Counting for baby vamps
by camerashy06
Summary: Pam's used to running Fangtasia herself now, so when Tara offers to help lighten the managerial load, she begrudgingly accepts the offer. A decision she soon magnanimously regrets...
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Counting for baby vamps... (1/2)  
**Author:** camerashy06  
**Summary:** Pam's used to running Fangtasia herself now, so when Tara offers to help lighten the managerial load, she begrudgingly accepts the offer. A decision she soon magnanimously regrets...

-

The back office of Fangtasia was a haven for Pam on most nights. Despite the muffled bass sounds coming from the stereo system out in the main bar area, it was fairly quiet, which made getting her less than desirable work done a lot easier.

With Eric away from the bar most of the time now, her work duties had increased, but on the flip side, were very rarely interrupted. Except for the occasional stupid inquiry from Ginger, but the brainless blonde had quickly learned to figure out shit for herself.

Tara even kept her distance a good amount of the time. Of course, between bartending and dancing night after night, it didn't leave much time for socializing. Something Pam didn't stand for anyhow.

The three women had settled into a formidable way of running things, which seemed to keep the Tru Blood flowing, both vampire and human customers happy and the bar making a profit. As such, Pam had found little to be pissed about these days.

So, naturally, as she sat back behind her desk, rapidly flipping through receipts, a faint knock on her office door had her mildly intrigued. "It's open," she called out flatly, her head still down and fingers racing across the buttons of a calculator.

Pushing the door open just enough to slip her frame through, Tara entered and shut the door quietly behind her. Pam had a _thing_ about slamming doors shut if the moment didn't warrant it.

Tara didn't speak. Instead, she stood there, transfixed by the movements of her maker. Despite Pam's overwhelming bad people skills, no one could say that she wasn't a hard worker, especially now that Eric had left the bar solely to her.

As she continued her ministrations, Pam could feel Tara's eyes drilling a hole into the side of her head. "What?" she groaned, stopping briefly to lift up and level an annoyed stare on her progeny.

The younger vampire took a few short steps forward and stopped. "The bar's clean, and everything's stocked," Tara stated, folding her arms across her chest. "You need help with anything?"

"What?" Pam echoed again, this time not as callously, but in slight disbelief.

Tara rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. "I'm not asking you knit a fucking quilt, so don't look so shocked," she shot back, taking a few more steps toward her maker's desk.

Whether or not Pam wanted to admit it, she was starting to like having Tara around. Not only that, but seeing as her progeny was always doing things - whether she was asked to or not - was a rarity the older vampire was still trying to get used to.

Perplexed by the blonde's silence, Tara let out a huff of frustration and reached out to snatch a sheet off of the desk before Pam could stop her.

"Get your fucking grubby hands off; that's important shit," Pam warned sternly. "Knowing you, you'll lose it or drench it blood since you can't seem to properly clean your chops off after feeding."

Ignoring Pam, Tara scanned the piece of paper. "What is this anyway?" she asked bewildered as she brought the paper closer to her face in an attempt to read it more clearly. "Who the hell wrote this? You can't make out any of the damn words."

In a nanosecond, Pam stood up and yanked the sheet out of Tara's hands. "None of your fucking business, y'hear?" Eying Tara harshly before sitting back down in her chair, the blonde opened up a side drawer and slid the paper in before slamming it shut. "Isn't there some poor pathetic excuse of a human wandering around that you can go fondle with your fangs?"

"Why do you always do that?" Tara inquired somewhat innocently, reaching down to swirl her fingers around a cup full of pencils.

Pam let out annoyed breath and smacked Tara's hand away. "Do what?" She was trying to get back to her previous work, but apparently her progeny intended on making that as difficult as possible.

"Deflect," the younger vampire replied quickly. "I know you're all dead inside and stuff, but havin' no feelings makes you look like a cold raggedy bitch."

That got Pam's attention. "Need I remind you," she started, leaning forward to lock her eyes with Tara's, "I can toss your ungrateful ass around this room like a rag doll just to tickle myself pink." Pam ran her fingertips smoothly across the top rim of the accented leather corset she was wearing. "And I love pink."

Tara pushed in further leaving only a few inches between her face and Pam's. "I ain't afraid of you," she stated in a low, even voice.

Pam's eyebrow quirked up in intrigue. Although it was agitating ninety percent of the time, Tara's stubborn streak was one of the things she was coming to love most about her progeny. She _rarely_ took 'no' for an answer. It probably had something to do with the fact that Pam was the exact same way, which tended to make their arguments escalate _a lot_ quicker.

Not a willing participant in the sport of giving in, Pam thought for a few long, hard seconds before succumbing to her better judgment. The truth was, if she had any shot in hell at being done with her workload on time, she needed help. Something it _pained_ her to admit, especially to Tara. The blonde always prided herself on accomplishing tasks on her own. That, and she never really was good at asking for help. So, it was either concede or suffer through the rest of this ungodly long episode of twenty questions, packed on with the impending bleeds and it would make for one hell of a shitty night.

Pushing back off the edge of her desk, Pam dropped back down into her chair and flung open the same side drawer she had exposed minutes before. She retrieved the paper lying on top and rose to her feet, circling around to the front of her desk and coming face to face with Tara.

"Here," Pam ordered, her voice coated with about as much enthusiasm as a comatose human as she shoved the paper hard against Tara's chest.

Tara rolled her eyes dramatically before yanking the paper back up to her eyes. Peeved, she let her arms fall to her sides in protest. "I told you," she reminded, "I can't read this shit. It looks like some third grader wrote it during an earthquake." She raked her eyes over the document once more. "And who the hell writes in cursive anymore?"

Throwing a hand up on her hip, Pam let out a deep sigh. "My mistake," she said dryly, reaching out to grab the paper back - a task Tara didn't let her complete. "I thought you'd progressed past the third grade by now."

"You're a real fuckin' bitch sometimes, you know that?" Tara snapped back, trying to hide the smallest hint of a smile that was tugging at her lips. Pam's snarkiness had always been amusing, even though most of it was directed at her nowadays.

Pam let out a small chuckle. "Only sometimes?" The blonde smirked before retreating back behind her desk and descending back into her leather chair.

Growing impatient, Tara shoved the paper back down in front of Pam's face. "You gonna tell me what this is or I gotta guess?"

"Get that outta my face before I hang you upside down by your fuckin' bra straps," Pam demanded stiffly before attempting to return to counting her receipts.

After letting Tara stew anxiously for all of about thirty seconds, Pam glanced up at her progeny and locked her gaze. "It's an inventory list; Tru Blood and booze." she explained irritably. "You can count past five, right?"

"That depends," Tara countered, feeling a bold rush of confidence, "can you write like you're older than eight?"

That comment earned the younger vampire an icy glare from her maker. "Tara..."

"What?"

"Shut up."

Pam shifted her eyes back down to her paperwork before instructing her progeny further. "If you wanna get paid, you'll figure out how to read."

Tara released a groan of disapproval. "Why the hell couldn't you use that dumbass pink laptop to type this shit on?"

"I prefer the old-fashioned way when it comes to doin' most things," Pam explained, scanning Tara's form from top to bottom. "You'll figure that out soon enough..."

Figuring she may as well bite the bullet, Tara gave in. After all, she was the one who had asked Pam if she needed help in the first place. "Okay, so...what the fuck do I order?"

Tempted to snap her pencil in half in aggravation, Pam took a deep breath and composed herself before she went batshit on her progeny. "The column on the left," the older vampire began, pointing her right hand out to the side to mirror Tara's left side, "that would be this part of the paper...," she said brusquely.

Glowering at her maker, Tara pressed on, wanting more constructive answers. "And...?"

Pam scoffed irritatedly, letting her hands drop onto the desk with a poignant thud. "That column houses the number we have in stock now," she blurted out quickly. "The middle column is the number we need to have to get by and the far right empty column is the number we need to order." Pam relaxed back into her chair and crossed her legs, leveling her gaze on Tara. "Do you think that spaghettio thing you call a brain can handle that?"

The older vampire arched her signature eyebrow wanting verbal confirmation from her progeny. "Well...?"

"Yeah, I can deal," Tara replied nonchalantly, determined to prove to Pam that she wasn't as fucking retarded as her maker thought she was. "I'll have it for you in an hour."

"Thirty minutes," Pam countered in a demanding tone. "And you better buy a bra with sturdy straps if you fuck up. Good luck."

Tara gritted her teeth and forced a small smile. "Thanks for the moral support," she said tersely, turning on the balls of her feet and exiting out to the bar.

Sighing to herself, Pam didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She didn't cry, unless it was over Eric, but she had faith in Tara and by this point trusted her to _some_ extent. It was an ordering form for booze...really, how fuckin' hard could it be to figure out?

-

_Three days later..._

-

"Tara!" Pam yelled out from the back room of Fangtasia. "Get your fuckin' semi-sweet chocolate ass in here, _now!_"

The younger vampire had been serving drinks behind the bar all night, but when she heard her maker's roar of anger, she vamp-sped to the back room in a flash.

She stopped before the closed door and took a deep breath. _At least she can't kill your stupid ass_, Tara thought, realizing that was the _only_ silver lining in the surely unpleasant scenario that was about to unfold. _But at least you kinda gott-_

"Tara!"

The younger vampire gulped. Tara may have said that she wasn't afraid of Pam to her face, but the truth was that her maker scared her shitless on a few occasions. A quality Tara hoped to inherit some day.

"I will twist you into a pretzel and use you as a fuckin' Christmas ornament if you don't get back here in the next-"

Tara flung the back office door open, but she was nowhere near prepared for the scene that stood before her. Pam was going to _kill_ her. Murder. Dead. _Really_ dead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Counting for baby vamps... (2/2)

**Author:** camerashy06

**Summary:** Pam's used to running Fangtasia herself now, so when Tara offers to help lighten the managerial load, she begrudgingly accepts the offer. A decision she soon magnanimously regrets...

Pam was going to _kill_ her. Murder. Dead. _Really_ dead.

-

Tara's eyes widened in horror when the landscape of Fangtasia's back room finally registered in her brain. There was crap piled everywhere. Shit stacked on top of shit. Only random patches of floor were visible under the excessively large number of boxes scattered about, and there was barely two feet to move in any direction.

"_Fuck_," she whispered under her breath. Pam had trusted her to do one teeny tiny thing that involved numbers and she had somehow fucked it up. _Royally_.

Pushing up on the balls of her feet to try and extend her vision over the mountains of cardboard, Tara saw no sign of her maker, which made the lump residing in her throat double in size. "Uh...Pam, you...um, back here?" she stuttered out, clearing her throat in between to help combat the nervousness coursing through her body.

She heard a loud thump and moved forward the few steps she could as her eyes raked over the room once more.

"What. The. _Fuck_. Tara," Pam growled slow and steady from behind one of the pillars. Groaning in annoyance as she moved to make herself visible, the blonde shifted around a few boxes before hopping up onto the desk and peering down over the sea of cardboard at her progeny. "Miss me?" she said sarcastically, her voice escalating in pitch and briefly spooking Tara in the process.

The younger vampire's eyes shot upward as she stumble back the couple of steps she had taken forward a few moments earlier. "What the hell you doin' up there?"

"It's the only way you'd be able to see me rip you a new asshole," Pam countered, sticking an elbow out to lean on a stack of boxes. "If I'd known I had to teach you your ABC's and 123's, I would've fuckin' done this myself."

Tara folded her arms across her chest tightly. "Do I get to say anything, or you gonna go all Judge fuckin' Judy on me?"

Pam raised an enlightened eyebrow. "Who's the boss applesauce?"

"You did not jus-"

Tara's vocalization didn't make it one syllable further as Pam had had just about enough chit chat and vamp-sped down to where her progeny was standing. Holding Tara by the throat, the older vampire shoved her hard back into the nearest wall and eyed her fiercely.

Pam's authoritative moves were quite frequent, so Tara had gotten used to them early on. Despite that fact, it wasn't the greatest or most settling feeling when the blonde whipped them out at a moment's notice. The older vampire had a keen way of getting her point across with _very_ few words. This time proved to be no different.

The hold the blonde had on Tara's neck wasn't one of a strangling nature, but it applied enough pressure to let her progeny know who was in control and how this "talk" was going to go down.

"Explain somethin' to me...how hard is it to count the boxes on the shelf and subtract from the number we need?" Pam questioned through clenched teeth. "I _hate_ being overstocked. We lose money. And I don't like losin' money."

Pam loosened her grip, eventually letting her hand fall to a resting place at her side. She kept her face firmly planted in front of Tara's, penetrating the younger vampire's eyes with that of her own. She wanted an answer. _Now_.

Tara swallowed down hard, reaching up to rub her hand along the expanse of her neck. "I thought I did it right, okay?" she blurted out, knowing that response wouldn't even come close to satisfying her maker, in fact it probably would anger her even further.

"Oh, you thought you did it right?" Pam echoed mockingly, throwing her hands up on her hips. "My mistake. These fifteen units of Austin Nichols Wild Turkey must've been shipped here by a drunk fuckin' gremlin." The blonde had to laugh to relieve the bubbling anger brewing inside of her. "It's just so ridiculous."

Straightening her posture against the wall, Tara smoothed out her shirt and refocused her attention on Pam. "Can't you just use it with something else?"

The sound of laughing stopped on a dime and Pam took one step forward. "It's a goddamn Kentucky whiskey, Tara. What the hell else am I going to serve it with? A fuckin' club sandwich?"

"What about makin' margaritas out of it?" Tara suggested warily, eying her maker's movements closely. "Or martinis or somethin'..."

"It's a foul, god fuckin' awful tastin' bourbon," Pam snapped, retreating back a few steps seeing as she wanted to severely punch something. "People don't drink it because it tastes good, they drink it because they hate their fuckin' shitty life."

Tara relaxed her tense stance, but kept her eyes trained on Pam. "Okay, okay. I get it. I fucked up," she conceded, finally diverting her eyes to the floor. "I'm sorry."

Figuring Pam probably couldn't stand the sight of her any longer, Tara made a move to exit the room, but was abruptly cut off by the blonde blocking the doorway.

"And just where do you think you're goin'?" Pam questioned tersely, freezing her progeny with a hard stare.

The younger vampire shuffled to her right to try and slip her way past, but every way she stepped, Pam masked it, preventing her from breaking through. "The bar needs a bartender," Tara blurted out in frustration. "You want all those hillbillies hoppin' over the counter and playin' tonsil hockey with the beer tap?"

Pam smirked, opting to lean her shoulder against the door frame. "We close in thirty minutes," she reminded. "Ginger can manage. And you're needed here." She nodded her head at the ungodly mess that sat before her, eliciting a disgruntled moan from Tara in return.

"Those shit-filled bottles they call bourbon weren't the only items you dropped the ball on," the blonde began, eying Tara sharply before scooting around her and to a stack of Tru Blood containers. "_Nine_ cases of AB negative instead of three."

Tara released an exasperated sigh before shuffling her way over to where Pam was standing. "So, I ordered a few more cases than usual. What's the big fuckin' deal? You'll sell it eventually."

The older vampire dropped the box she was holding out of pure agitation, nearly taking out Tara's foot in the process. "No one fuckin' drinks AB negative," she grumbled, picking up a few more boxes and setting them to the side in an attempt to clear a path to her desk. "You may as well go suck on a bag of rusty nails."

"How many times I gotta say I'm sorry?" Tara questioned, getting slightly pissed off at Pam's attitude. "Or you just like yellin' to hear the sound of your own damn voice?"

Pam lifted an eyebrow, fixing her progeny with a flat look. "Watch it, y'hear?"

Tara sloughed off her maker's idle threat and began shoveling boxes to either side of the room. "Wonder what they call PMS for vampires, 'cause whatever that shit is...it's definitely your fuckin' time of the month," she mumbled under her breath, though she was pretty sure Pam had heard her, judging by the sour look being thrown her way.

After a couple more minutes had passed, both vampires had the back room of Fangtasia looking...respectable. It wasn't appealing to the eye, but at least you could now maneuver around in more than a three foot circle.

Flopping down on the leather couch, Tara shifted her body so she was laying down with her arm nestled back behind her head. She peered casually over at Pam, stopping to study her facial expression intricately. "You still mad?" she questioned genuinely.

Pam had retreated back behind her desk and was resting comfortably in her leather chair. "I haven't decided yet, you screwed the pooch a little too hard this time," she replied dryly, shifting her eyes over to settle on Tara's form.

"Not like I'd be able to tell anyhow," Tara copped, tweaking her lips up into a small smile.

The older vampire exhaled a hard breath, folding her arms across her chest. "You make me have _feelings_," Pam blurted out, hesitating to look over at her progeny, but once she did, she was met with a shocked and somewhat encouraging expression. "No. Not _those_ type of feelings," she quickly corrected, her tone flat with little to no emotion. The blonde hadn't intended on letting that information slip, but it kind of just came out anyway and there was no sense in trying to back peddle completely.

Tara felt a sting from Pam's words, whether they were intentional or not. "What type of _feelings_ you think I was implyin', bitch?" she shot back defensively. "What? You think you're too good for me or somethin'? That's pretty fuckin' rich." The younger vampire folded her arms tightly across her chest and proceeded to look everywhere but in Pam's eyes.

"Are you done?" the blonde asked drolly, pausing for a few seconds. "I'm just sayin' you're not as much of a thorn in my side. That's all."

Allowing her eyes to roam back over to lock with Pam's, Tara slowly rose to sit up on the couch, her lips cracking into a sly grin at the realization. "You like havin' me around." The younger vampire tried to suppress the growing smile once Pam's icy glaze turned back toward her.

Rolling her eyes dramatically, the blonde pushed up out of her seat and curled her way around the desk. "This is why I don't have female friends," Pam said in a huff, making her way toward the door before casually looking over her shoulder, semi-unimpressed. "You all are ready to melt into a fuckin' pile of soggy kleenexes with your stuffed animal unicorns and buckets of soupy ice cream."

With that, Tara watched closely as her maker swayed her hips seductively back and forth as she sauntered her way out of the back room, listening to Pam's heels click down the hallway until the sound completely drowned out. Tare felt good. She knew she was getting to Pam, and watching her maker squirm with unexplained feelings brought a certain delight to the younger vampire, one she was more than happy to continue chasing.


End file.
